Age: 45
male
Ryan Thomas Gosling (born November 12, 1980) is a Canadian actor. Prominent in independent film, he has also worked in blockbuster films of varying genres, and has accrued a worldwide box office gross of over 1.9 billion USD. He has received various accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, and nominations for two Academy Awards and a BAFTA Award. Born and raised in Canada, he rose to prominence at age 13 for being a child star on the Disney Channel's The Mickey Mouse Club (1993–1995), and went on to appear in other family entertainment programs, including Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1995) and Goosebumps (1996). His first film role was as a Jewish neo-Nazi in The Believer (2001), and he went on to star in several independent films, including Murder by Numbers (2002), The Slaughter Rule (2002), and The United States of Leland (2003). Gosling gained wider recognition and stardom for the 2004 romance film The Notebook. This was followed by starring roles in a string of critically acclaimed independent dramas including Half Nelson (2006), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Gosling co-starred in three mainstream films in 2011, the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love and the action drama Drive, all of which were critical and commercial successes. He then starred in the acclaimed financial satire The Big Short (2015) and the romantic musical La La Land (2016), the latter of which won him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Further acclaim followed with the science fiction thriller Blade Runner 2049 (2017) and the biopic First Man (2018). In addition to acting, he made his directorial debut in 2014's Lost River.
Ryan Gosling
Joseph Smith
for Joseph Smith in Kingdom of Nauvoo
Suggested by jordanshipley
Founded in Western Illinois in 1839 by the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith and his followers... situated on a hill and protected on three sides by the Mississippi River, the industrious Mormons quickly built a religious empire; at its peak, the city surpassed Chicago in population, with more than 12,000 inhabitants. The Mormons founded their own army, with Smith as its general; established their own courts; and went so far as to write their own constitution, in which they declared that there could be no separation of church and state, and that the world was to be ruled by Mormon priests. A raucous, violent, character-driven story, Kingdom of Nauvoo raises many of the central questions of American history, and even serves as a parable for the American present. How far does religious freedom extend? Can religious and other minority groups survive in a democracy where the majority dictates the law of the land? The Mormons of Nauvoo, who initially believed in the promise of American democracy, would become its strongest critics. Throughout his absorbing chronicle, Park shows the many ways in which the Mormons were representative of their era, and in doing so elevates nineteenth century Mormon history into the American mainstream.
